Tiny snowflakes flitted down from the dim clouds onto the fresh blanket of snow that last night had brought. The last bit of tiredness was finally draining from me as I tugged the front door shut, but the icy air that had been waiting for me was like a slap in the face. An ache had already begun to swell in my paws as I started off through the thick layer of snow on my way to work and shoving them deep into my pockets didn't help much, given that the fabric was smooth and not built with a soft interior to contain the heat.

Within minutes of the walk, my feet kicked forward numbly like solid blocks of ice. I bitterly scorned the cold temperatures in my mind, recalling that it would only drop next month, and knew I wouldn't look forward to it. I watched my surroundings shift slowly as I traveled out of my neighborhood and into the next—One I'd grown to find as familiar as my own after working at the HHDA for nearly a year.

The homes on either side of the street were decorated with a blanket of snow across the top as I wandered through. The snowfall didn't seem to be stopping any time soon, either, as snowflakes so small I could barely make them out showered over the area. It was like the entire neighborhood had transformed into a whole different world, just white, white, and white everywhere under a white sky.

"How can you just walk around here like you know what you're doing, huh?"

The sudden shout shook me abruptly before I realized that I wasn't the one being shouted at. Nowadays, any sort of yell, no matter whether it was meant for me or not, instantly thrust the notion into my head that I'd done something wrong. I should get out of here quickly before I get tied up in an argument. I gulped down a deep breath to ease my jumpy nerves by the unexpected shout and kept on shuffling through the snow.

"Hey!" another shout struck the air. "I'm talking to you, dog. Don't you know how rude it is to walk away when you're being talked to?"

Oh no. The sound of approaching footsteps crunching over the snow finally registered as my feet came to a stop, turning around to see who was calling out to me. A yellow cat wore a silky midnight-blue coat and a dissatisfied frown as she stalked across the snow towards me, her thin blue hair that ended finely at the curve of her chin fluttering in the faint winter breeze. Her yellow and blue striped tail flicked defiantly as she neared.

"Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't care," she spat out at me.

My mind reeled, desperately beckoning words to help myself out of this situation, but nothing came out. Instead, I settled for a brief smile in greeting and started off along the path again.

"Where are you going, then?" the cat's snappy voice followed me as I tried to walk away. "Are you going to work?"

I didn't make a sound. The discomfort was suffocating, squeezing my stomach and tightening my throat. The cat was still following me, each of my footsteps closely followed by another that was not my own. Go away, please go away.

"If I were you, I'd actually care about the direction my business was headed," the cat called out. Somewhere in her sentence, my footsteps became the only of their kind once again. Maybe she thought that she had chased me away. It was definitely working. "I swear, you designers are good for nothing. Treating your customers like that. You'll be sorry once your company goes downhill, that's for sure."

My pace quickened as well as the rhythm of my heartbeat, throbbing in my chest as I carried myself right out of that neighborhood. Even after I had escaped physically, the words were already etched into my mind. My stomach tumbled sickeningly and I worried that if I thought about the encounter too much, I'd lose my breakfast. Not okay. Not okay. I couldn't reach the work building quick enough, the weight of the cat's presence still pressing on my shoulders. My eyes searched every corner, waiting for her to pop up again while my ears were alert for any unusual sound such as being followed like before. I reached the building without being stopped a second time, but my stomach was still far off ease.

I struggled to brush off the event as I ascended the stairs to the quiet second floor and brought myself into my office. I shrugged off my coat and chucked it down next to the desk, lacking the energy to lay it neatly across the back of the chair, and decided to help myself forget what happened over a soothing and warm cup of coffee. The cat's angry face and upset voice flashed through my memory with every step I took and even though it must have been almost half an hour ago now, I was utterly shaken up by the idea of it and uneasily pushed my way through the break room's door.

Lottie and Lyle were seated in their chairs around the table in the middle of the room when I emerged, breaking the conversation they were engaged in as they both turned to look at me. I hadn't prepared for any chat as I would grab my coffee and go, but Lyle picked up on the bad energy in moments.

"What's going on? Are you okay?" Lyle asked me before I had made it four steps into the room. "You look like something bad happened."

Talking about the event would only call back the memories of it. It was better to just release it entirely. "I'm fine," I mumbled, though I was clearly not fine, dismissing myself from the conversation as I reached the coffee maker and reached up to retrieve a mug from the cupboard above.

But it was only the beginning, a warning before the storm. I thought that the cat I had run into on my way to work either didn't know quite what she was talking about or was filled with some unspoken hostility that she could only release at the cost of others, but over time, I slowly grew to realize just how right she was.

At first, nothing changed, and the year came to an end. It was January of 2014, we were prepared to begin a new year of success at the Happy Home Designer and Academy, and then we were on the decline. I began to hear of more customer complaints in a month than I had in the last half-year. It was like we had been caught in a trainwreck that we hadn't even caused. Everything was piling up on us more and more as the weeks rolled on and we couldn't figure out what we were doing wrong for the life of us. We hadn't changed our methods or started doing anything differently, so why was all of this happening now?

Once or twice, I set aside reason and wondered if that cat I had bumped into in the street was of the supernatural and had set a curse on the business. At the end of the year, we were thriving, and then after that event, everything was being torn apart bit by bit. I often found that it didn't quite make sense how everything had begun to go wrong so quickly, which frequently led to nights laying awake, staring into the immense darkness of my bedroom and asking myself how long this had been happening before my attention had been turned to it.

When February arrived, I'd once thought that I would be celebrating my first full year working, but instead, I avoided thoughts of my future. The month was tense as we were pushed closer and closer to the point in the reception of the business where we would need to take action. I avoided thinking about what that action could have been if we came to it. We could lose the entire business if we're not careful.

February slipped away into March. The snow of winter ceased to fall, melting away the glittering and packed-down patches and leaving puddles of water in the damp grass. Before I knew it, my second initiation was a topic that had begun to emerge into meetings to be discussed, but nobody was as eager to attend as they had been last year. There was no telling what crowd we would face the day we would get up and try to talk about the business and ourselves. We didn't discuss it very often until the day came closer.

Sometimes I caught myself in a spiral of worry and fearful thinking for the future ahead and reminded myself that it might not have even been as bad as it seemed. It wasn't anything too concerning at this point, just a wave of dissatisfaction. All good businesses fluctuated between success and downfall from time to time and I'd seen moments like that here, there was no denying that. But there was also no denying the notable drop in customer presence in the building at the beginning of the day.

The first sign that something was truly wrong was the suddenly damaged reputation getting attention from those who had the power and the influence to ruin us. I was on my way to Studies after finishing up my lunch break in the middle of March when a white bear with a formal red dress and a notepad stopped me to linger at my side, introducing herself as a journalist who wanted to ask me some questions about the business. I knew it was bound to be trouble from the minute she revealed she had a few inquiries.

"There's been a lot of complaints circling around the reputation of this business. I'm not sure if you've heard about any of that," the bear explained, sticking by my side like a shadow as I walked on down the hallway along the classrooms to find the one where I would teach. Animals had begun to gather in small clusters along the walls, waiting for the session to begin. "Some have said that the HHDA might be going down for good this time. What do you have to say about that?"

"Well, I wouldn't say that's true," I told her brightly. We crossed a path of sunlight bleeding over the polished wood floors from a window. "We've had moments like this before. A few complaints here and there can't take us down."

"I think at this point, it's a little more than a few complaints, wouldn't you agree?" the bear asked. "The new methods that this business has been exhibiting aren't exactly well-received. Customers are finding the new approach unfair and irresponsible, so I've heard. They want to know what brought about this change and if it can be reversed for the good of the company."

We rounded the corner of the hallway to another set of classrooms. The one where I would be teaching was on the far end under a sign reading B-4.

"I believe you must be mistaken," I said. "We haven't made any changes here at the HHDA. Everything is the same as it always was before now. If anything, we're especially cautious about making changes and never follow through with something completely unless we're certain that it will bring success to the company, and that includes our customers' and clients' preferences."

"Well, it's just that they've begun to feel unheard and that, in time, reflects on the reputation of the company," the bear explained. "I won't hide the truth from you. The image you're creating for yourself isn't exactly one to proudly show the world. The customers' experiences and reviews are starting to make you seem like you don't work with them based on their own needs and simply take things into your own paws to do things your way, which goes against everything you or the other designers have said about the company. What do you have to say about this?"

"I don't know what there is to say," I confessed. "I assure you that we're not doing anything differently than we were a year ago. The main objective of the HHDA is to have everyone's voices heard in their designing needs and to help them achieve the goals they strive for. That has never and will never change."

"What happens if the reputation continues to fall?" the bear went on as we neared the door, a question I had asked myself far too many times. "Is there anything we should look out for in terms of changes, maybe in the working environment behind the scenes?"

She didn't need to say it outright for me to understand what she meant. "Nobody will be getting fired from this, if that's what you're asking," I told her. The conversation had begun to catch the attention of the animals assembled at the walls, eyes following the bear and me as we drifted through the hallway.

"Sure, but what I meant was if there will be anyone coming back to the HHDA to help you out of the hole you've dug yourself in," the bear corrected me.

"In that case, there's nobody who can come back," I told her, my paw jumping out to land on the long doorknob to the classroom, ready to enter at a moments' notice. "The three designers who are working here currently are the only designers who have worked here in the time that the building has been open."

It seemed that the bear was growing fed up with my consistent answers of denial, as her next question came out as more of a jab than the professional inquiries she had posed for the beginning of the interview. "So, aren't you worried about the potential possibility that there's something that your fellow designers haven't told you about the company you work at?" she challenged.

After my day was interrupted to be asked tense questions about the business's downfall that I hadn't requested for, I wouldn't put up with the rudeness. "Excuse me, I have a class to teach," I told her politely, thrusting open the door and excusing myself into the room. "Have a good day."

The next constructive meeting was on Thursday, March twenty-seventh. I was sure that we weren't exactly enthusiastic about speaking of the obvious. It was just tiring now and had started to wear us all down trying to pretend that nothing was wrong and to keep smiles on our faces despite the taunts of our failure being hurled at us. But nevertheless, one of these days we would need to talk about everything that was happening, and it appeared that day was today.

The only sound to hit the room was the rhythmic ticking of the clock. Four-thirty. Lottie, Lyle, and I were seated in our usual places at the table to begin the meeting, waiting for the minute hand to hit the six. The events we'd just witnessed were still working their way through our minds, sinking in to be processed. We'd even been having some problems in Happy Homeroom as well as everywhere else, the one section of the business that I had thought might be safe as it was only available per request, but the participant had thrown a shocking fit and marched from the room telling us that we deserved everything that we were being faced with. We couldn't continue to ignore it.

Lyle was the first to move, drawing in a slow, deep breath. He removed his glasses to firmly rub his eyes with his free paw for a few seconds before he slipped his glasses back into place and folded his paws together on the table in front of him.

"We need to talk about the future," Lyle mumbled.

A worried expression had etched into Lottie's face as she sat beside her uncle. She had raised her head to look at him when he began to speak but didn't have anything to say. Nor did I.

"More specifically, the problems we're having," Lyle added tiredly after a moment. "I assume you both know what I'm talking about. I understand that it's pretty heavy to talk and think about, so I won't press the topic for too long. I just have a few things I want to get out of the way first, and then you can both leave early for the day."

Lottie looked away again, directing her attention towards her paws as she examined them like they had the answers written on her palms.

"It seems that we've had some problems connecting with customers recently," Lyle went on. The ticking of the clock served a repetitive and rhythmic background to the conversation. "We're doing something that makes them feel like their needs are not being met. It's about time that we start talking about that and putting our heads together to figure out what we can do differently."

"Are we doing something wrong?" Lottie asked, lifting her head again. Her voice was noticeably fragile, ready to break at any given moment.

"I don't know," Lyle admitted. "If we are, then I don't know what it is. That's why we need to get to the bottom of this."

"I just don't know why something like this would happen," Lottie mumbled, dropping her gaze back to her paws. "I didn't even know something was wrong until customers started shaming me for not fixing a problem I had no idea existed."

"Then I hope in a few months down the line, all of this will be in the past," Lyle said, sneaking a glance over at Lottie before he looked at me. "It's not at an alarming point as of right now. There's still a large chance for this to be reversed, so I don't want you to worry too much about it. That being said, if we can fix this, we need to fix this quickly."

"How do we fix something like this?" I asked.

"Well, first, we need to determine the source of the problem. Then maybe, we can eradicate it," Lyle replied. "Is there anything that either of you know about this situation that I should know about? Do you have any idea of possible causes?"

Lottie and I exchanged murmurs of admitted denial, so he tried again.

"Have either of you done or witnessed something that could have led to something of this extent?" Lyle questioned.

"I never saw anything out of the ordinary," Lottie told him. "I kept hearing about some changes that we'd made that's causing customers to abandon their support, but we haven't made any changes. I don't understand it."

"All right," Lyle muttered, pushing out a faint sigh as he straightened up in his seat again. "That was all I needed to know for now. I'll see what I can do, but we might need to pick up this discussion later when we're all feeling a little bit better about it."

Lyle heaved himself up from his seat, casting a quick glance over Lottie and me before he spoke again.

"For now, you two can head out," he suggested. "Or you can stay here for a while and get some more work done. Either one is fine by me. I think I'll go back to my office to finish some work myself."

Lyle had already started off back towards the door when I rose to my feet, ready to return to my office as well, but Lottie didn't move. She was still staring down at the table as she had before Lyle had begun to leave as if she didn't know that the meeting was over at all. Her dark eyes were glazed with contemplation.

"Are you okay?" I inquired.

Lottie gave a slight nod but didn't look up at me, seeming distracted. "I'm just thinking," she murmured. Her gaze strayed along the pale surface of the table for a few seconds longer before she finally raised her head, her eyes meeting mine. "I think I'm going to head to the break room and enjoy a comforting cup of hot chocolate. If you'd like, you can come with me."

Together, Lottie and I made our way to the break room. It wasn't too far of a walk, since it was just around the corner. We each prepared ourselves a mug of hot chocolate, sprinkling little marshmallows across the top for that extra stretch of contentment, but we didn't stay too long in the room. We decided on taking a leisurely stroll through the deserted halls of the first floor, indulging in a pleasant chat about life to avoid the thought of the problems currently looming over the HHDA.

"I think that one of the most important things you can have with you is a distraction," Lottie said. She had been rambling for a little while as we walked along, mugs in paws with heat pulsing to our palms, but I had nothing in mind to mention, and so I only listened. "Not too much of a distraction, though. If you depend on distractions to live your life, then you never really live at all. It's just something to keep you motivated and make you happy when things don't make very much sense."

"I suppose I never really thought of it that way," I admitted.

"What are your distractions, Digby?" Lottie inquired.

A cloudy dimness from the solemn weather outside the windows sat in the space as we drifted through the halls. I was sure that we must have gone in a circle at some point—I couldn't recall there being this many hallways in the building—But it didn't really matter. We talked, we laughed, and for a while, it was only us in the entire world. Nobody to stop us, nobody to interrupt us.

"Have you spoken with Isabelle recently?" I asked. "I remember that you were going back and forth with letters late last year."

"Oh, no, I haven't," Lottie told me, her eyes almost widening at the question. "I've tried, but she stopped answering my letters after writing to me about her birthday four months ago. I don't know what happened. I hope she's okay. I'm getting pretty worried."

Eventually, we found ourselves at a window to peer out, but our conversations didn't end there. Half-frozen rain drummed against the window from the dismal skies and I could almost sense the chill that reigned the outside world as I looked out. Lottie allowed herself a long sip of her cooling hot chocolate as I rested my weight on the wall to stare out the window, watching icy drops slip down the glass.

"I can't stop thinking about what's happening with our customers," Lottie confessed, lowering her mug to follow my gaze out the window. Oh, I guess we're going to talk about it after all. "I'm worried that something's truly wrong and that we won't figure out what that is in time to salvage what's left of our reputation."

"Mr. Lyle said it wasn't time to worry about it yet," I reminded her. "There's still time for things to improve."

"I understand that, but the unpredictability of the future is what scares me," Lottie said, shifting her weight anxiously between her feet as she held her mug between her paws. All of the marshmallows she had put into the drink before it cooled had since melted, leaving white patches where they had once been. "This company means the world to me, Digby. More than that. I would do anything to figure out what's going wrong so that I can fix it. But sometimes I just wish I could forget everything that's been happening and live my life again."

The heavy rain continued to trickle down the window, striking it like it planned to break through. A dull numbness drilled into my chest as the words echoed themselves in my mind. If only it was that easy to forget everything.

"You know, I keep thinking back to what I was talking about with distractions," Lottie spoke up again after a long stretch of quietness between us. "I have an idea that we can try, if you're up for it."

I tore my gaze from the window to look at her. "What did you have in mind?" I inquired.

"There's a restaurant near my house that clears out the floor every night at eight for dancing," Lottie explained. "It's not really any specific kind of dancing, it just depends on the music that's currently playing. I was hoping that we could go there together tonight. Maybe as a second date. I'd say it would be a good way to take our minds off things."

Yes. I had thoroughly enjoyed the last date we had been on and the situation would definitely be the same this time around. Plus, she was right—A night of dancing would have been just enough to block out the troubles in our lives. At the very least, Mom and Dad would have been happy to hear that I'd gotten myself a date again.

The rain still clobbered against the windows as I shut myself into the building with a firm tug to close the door. My umbrella was still dripping with water after I had closed it to come inside, so I shook it out in a hasty attempt to let it dry. There was a slim umbrella case lined with cloudy glass standing beside the door, one that had already claimed authority over a rubbery yellow umbrella and a clear umbrella with a magenta border, and so I discarded my own plain black umbrella in what was left of the empty space and swung my gaze across the area.

The floor, evidently once holding the space for a dining room, had been almost completely cleared out by now. The only tables in sight were pushed up against the walls, draped in a white lace cloth and carrying various beverages and snacks. Maybe twenty-five or thirty animals had already arrived, gathering in clusters either at the tables to chat or in the empty segment of the floor to dance together. I had walked into what seemed to be a slow, formal dance portion of the night as tranquil piano music resounded against the rumble of talking and hammering of rain against the windows.

The atmosphere purely radiated with warmth and a home-like feel, though the dancing, the attire, and the music spoke the true image of elegance. I drifted through the room, feet carefully pacing the empty space and eyes flickering through the area for a familiar face. Like before, I wore the suit that Dad had offered to me for the occasion and it created a similar effect, sauntering through the space like I was as fragile as glass with a sophisticated eye to travel throughout the room. My gaze fluttered between the faces around me the further I advanced into the room, though none of them belonged to Lottie. It seemed I was the first to arrive between the two of us.

I found myself at the refreshments table. From end to end, snacks in baskets and beverage bottles were set out for selection of the attendees. I strayed along the table, passing little lemon squares, sugar cookies, baked treats lined with a neat white frosting, and more before I reached the end where I could retrieve a plate for my own choices. I wasn't exactly sure that I wanted to be stuffing my face with desserts when Lottie would arrive and notice me, so I would only take a few that looked the most appetizing.

I took a second round along the table, picking up a lemon square and one of the smaller brownie pieces on my way. At the end of the search, I situated myself at the end of the table in a position to survey the room at my leisure, holding my paper plate in one paw and occasionally plucking a treat from it with the other. There would be nothing that would go unnoticed from my eyes.

Minutes in, I had begun to attract attention. I wasn't quite unknown in this neighborhood right now. Eyes had begun to wander through the room, sneaking back towards me and flicking away as soon as I came to notice as if nobody could stand to look at me for long. It was like I had been completely isolated from everyone, like each and every animal as far as I could see was their own simple block of personality and I was something different, something strange. I was me and for the first time, it was a bad thing outside of my own mind. I put on a smile and instead of hurting, I immersed myself in the sensation of being detached from what was in front of me.

Faint vibrations danced beneath the floors as the music flowed on. With the ever-moving life of the moment in sounds and motions, it was easy to get stuck in it. It was like every hint of the experience was drowning my senses, inhaling the impression with every breath. It was such a happy place—At least, it would have been without the reminder that came with my presence of the complications I was a part of. Now, the happy tone concealed a solemn aftertaste, one that dipped into my chest like a shiver of sadness.

I finished my treats soon after. The clock above the door ticked towards eight o'clock, when Lottie had agreed to meet with me, so I wouldn't risk taking more. I tossed out the used paper plate and returned to the place in the room where I stood with a heightened alertness whenever the door swung open. The crowd had only continued to grow since I had arrived, new animals emerging through the doorway with every new minute shaking out their umbrellas before advancing into the room. The rain fell more intensely than ever, streaking down from the sky in what looked like pure sheets of water and the wind softly rattled the casing of the tall window. If Lottie was late, I wouldn't have blamed her, with weather like this.

It was five past eight when Lottie arrived. The shrieking wind grew louder with the opening of the door as she ducked inside the building, hastily shutting the door after her and shaking out a sheer pale pink umbrella as I had with mine when I first arrived. She'd dressed herself up in a bubblegum-pink cardigan over a floral dress that hung to her ankles over matching pink high heels and was dampened from the rain. Like the first date we'd been on, her hair fell in gentle curls down her back, though it wasn't pulled up this time. I watched her as she stood at the door to situate her umbrella in the holder and give her best attempt to squeeze the moisture out of her skirt, but she hadn't noticed me yet.

The peaceful piano music quieted for a moment, transitioning into a light and bouncy melody. In a single moment, it seemed like all of the focus I had spent examining the room had been directed to Lottie, waiting for the moment that she would realize I was already here, as my main objective had already passed. She released her grip on her skirt again, having squeezed out the rainwater that it had collected, and in the blink of an eye, our gaze met. A wave of tingly flutters consumed me at the suddenness of the action.

Lottie sent a rushed paw over her curly hair to smooth it down before she started off briskly across the room to join me, offering a bright smile as she neared.

"I'm sorry that I'm late," Lottie apologized, coming to a stop at my side and sneaking a glance behind her at the clock positioned above the door. "I couldn't find where I had put my umbrella after work and that put me behind schedule a bit."

"Not to mention how this weather's an absolute mess," I agreed as she turned to look at me again.

Lottie gave a brief nod, seeming almost breathless from the hurry of reaching the building on time. "Well, I would travel through any weather to be with you," she told me.

The atmosphere of the room had completely shifted since I had first arrived. A sort of melancholy had poisoned the air at the thought of eyes identifying me suspicious or accident-prone, but now it was like I could fall back into comfort. At the very least, I wasn't alone anymore. I had my distraction for the troubles that surrounded me like an aura. Lottie was both my comfort and my distraction for the night.

Neither of us had anything to say for several minutes afterward. The harsh rain clattering against the window, the hum of conversation, and the tap of footsteps along the floor in rhythmic dance swallowed up the space for conversation. A cheerful gray dog had made her way through the room to introduce herself as the owner of the restaurant and to offer wishes of enjoyment to those who had stopped by, but that was the only talking I did for a large chunk of time.

Lottie looked over at me from time to time, but didn't speak. I kept waiting to see what she would say, as I continued to catch sight of an unspoken message through the darkness of her eyes, but she said nothing. The silence between us grew longer for nearly twenty minutes as the clock inched towards eight thirty. That was fine with me. Conversation or no conversation, I found that I enjoyed simply looking at her—Not in any unusual way, just to see her face that was put together in such a pleasant and satisfying sense both by her makeup; her thick eyelashes sitting neatly over her dark, round eyes; and her natural beauty, all framed by the curls of her hair. She never seemed to realize how lovely she looked.

An especially intense wave of wind slammed violently against the window, visibly startling Lottie as she whirled around to see what had happened, her hair bouncing from her shoulder in her abruptness.

"Wow, it looks terrible out there," Lottie murmured at the sight of the powerful rain. Her paws found her arms as if she were trying to wrap herself in an invisible blanket. "That's going to be awful to go home in. It gives me the chills just looking at it."

She hadn't even brought a coat; her only protection from the cold was the cardigan. "How far is your house from here?" I asked. "I don't want you to freeze."

"It's a little bit far, unfortunately," Lottie replied, turning back to face me. "For this weather, at least. I've got about twenty minutes to get there."

Now, I was starting to feel the chills, shivers jolting through me as we stood side by side in the silence that reigned once more. Evidently, it wasn't just Lottie and me who had started to notice how chilly it had begun to feel inside as the minutes inched by, more and more animals clustered along the walls exchanging small comments with gestures of the chill like rubbing their arms or pointing to the bleak world outside. At eight thirty, the owner was making her rounds through the room again, offering questions to the attendees after taking note of the change in atmosphere.

"Is it a bit cold in here?" the dog asked, passing through the crowd and looking between the animals to get their opinion. "Should I make it a bit warmer? I can turn up the heat a little bit if it's cold."

Once the dog had disappeared from the room again, presumably to adjust the heating, the warmth from when I had first stepped into the building had begun to swarm the room again. The current song was silenced again shortly afterwards—It had been quite a long song, I realized, lasting at longer than ten minutes—And gave way to a melody of a different tone, one particularly orchestral with an uplifting resonance. It must have been a favored song as more of the animals standing off to the side joined in couples in the middle of the room to engage in brisk, formal dance.

I glanced over at Lottie beside me, finding her not watching me this time but instead focused on the dancing in the middle of the room, and I extended my open paw to her. "Would you like to dance with me?" I asked.

In a flash, Lottie's eyes were on me again as if startled by the request, her gaze falling over my paw. "Sure," she said after a moment, gently laying her paw into mine, and I started off to bring her to the middle of the room.

Together, we came to a stop in the middle of the room amongst the other dancers drifting around us. Only then did I release her paw, carefully dropping it in order to proceed.

"I don't think I've ever tried a proper dance before," Lottie confessed as we faced each other once again. "I'm nervous that I'm going to stumble over your feet or my own, or bump into the other animals dancing."

"With how they see us right now, I think that bumping into them would be the least of their concerns," I assured her.

The rain still pounded against the windows as if they would break, the music wafting through the room with the precise rhythm of muffled footsteps. I reached out to take hold of her, paws gently resting on her waist and drawing her in closer to dance with her. Lottie seemed to tense up slightly at first by my touch, hesitant by the fact that she wasn't certain what she was doing, but relaxed again and put her paws behind my neck as we surrendered comfortably to the consistent rhythm of the dance.

Following the subtle rhythm of the music, we moved nearly in unison, drifting in patient steps as if we had both been prepared for this exact moment. When I had been in the back of the room, I'd taken advantage of the opportunity to fully examine the area, but now my range of focus had closed in slim to the moment. Creeping eyes were something I came to find not unusual at every turn, pacing across the floor in each other's gentle grip to find we had captured the attention of a dancing or gathering animal. Always questioning and double-checking—Is that who I think it is, is that the source of the expanding chaos, is that who we need to look out for? We weren't here for their own appeal. No matter the thoughts we provoked, no matter how many eyes turned to us, we would dance together amidst the societal tension. Let them watch.

Emotion stirred in my chest with every step, a feeling I couldn't quite name. It was the breathlessness of uncertainty of something new, or perhaps just the thrill of the idea of defying the crowd. It was my first dance as well, something I had no intention of bringing up, and while I had been expecting a peaceful dance for an engaging experience, thoughts fired through my mind instead.

In the lack of conversation like before, drowned in the orchestral sensation of sound, my thoughts were never louder. Back and forth through the room, Lottie and I moved in mindful steps, guiding each other through the dance. Her paws sitting unmoved at the back of my neck, my own paws resting gently on her waist. Every flick of her dark eyes meeting mine, every brief shimmer passing through that darkness whenever it caught the light above, and the jittery shivers of a pleasantly anxious unknown shot through my stomach. Before I knew it, the attentiveness of my movements had enhanced to the point where purely existing was almost unnatural. My paws still maintained their light hold as the minutes shuffled along, but with too much thinking of this as well brought the question of whether they ached to let go or pull her closer. What was happening here?

"They're looking at us," Lottie said at last, several minutes into our dance. She had dropped her voice to a whisper soft enough so as to not disturb the other dancers yet loud enough for only me to catch over the sound of the music. With a short glance around me, it was true—Eyes still continued to stray our way from time to time.

"I got some stares when I first walked in," I agreed. "They recognize us from Happy Home. It's not really a good thing right now."

"No, it's not," Lottie murmured. Suddenly, I registered a chattering voice amongst the sounds to address the group and determined that the owner had come back for something. After a long pause, Lottie spoke again. "We need to find a way to fix that. I can't stress enough how important it is. I don't just mean for our reputation, even though it's not looking too well anymore. We can't let the business go down for reasons we don't even know."

The words sank in as the quietness grew. We continued to sweep across the floor together in our unbroken dance, unspokenly ignoring the eyes that found us with distrust. For the next chunk of minutes after the fact, the stomach-turning words echoed through my mind.

"What are we going to do?" Lottie whispered as another wave of pouring rain hammered against the window. "What if it doesn't get better?"

"I can't see the company falling apart for no particular reason, especially with a company of its size. Plus, I'm sure that Mr. Lyle would let us know when it's time to be worried about something like that," I told her. Memories etched into my mind from this afternoon, the weary expression that Lyle had worn to the meeting and his anxious request to talk about the future. I decided not to mention that. "It's just a moment of disconnection. I'd say it'll go away on its own like every other time this has happened."

"But it won't, Digby," Lottie argued. "This is the point when we need to intervene. Leaving this to go away on its own is only going to make the problem grow. It's not normal anymore. We're losing everyone's trust."

A muffled chime from the clock on the wall told me that it was nine o'clock at night. Lottie would need to start heading home after a while. Lyle had wanted her home by ten. I'd have to keep watch on the clock so that she didn't set off for home any later than nine forty.

"I think it's going to be okay," I told her. A shimmer of worry deep in her eyes made it clear that she didn't quite believe me.

"What if it isn't?" Lottie asked. The animals around us felt to have faded away now and all I could see was her standing in front of me as we danced along the floor. It was just the two of us in an empty, broken world. "What happens then?"

I tried to picture a future where the HHDA had fallen, but my mind came up blank, like a piece of paper waiting for a story. My work was my entire life and without it, it was no life of mine. I couldn't even compose an image of the possibilities of a future where it was gone.

"I don't know," I confessed. "I just can't see it ending any other way."

The night ended shortly after as nine thirty came around. The rain had begun to recede, but Lottie had suggested that she head out a bit early in case it picked up again on her way home. I offered to walk her home but she declined, advising that I stay inside for a while longer in case the weather cleared up completely. And so I stood behind to watch her collect her umbrella from the umbrella case, push her way back through the doorway while opening up the umbrella as she stepped through, and disappeared out into the night.

The rain didn't cease in the time that I waited inside, but instead left a light drizzle by the time I decided to leave shortly before ten. I retrieved my umbrella from the doorway—The assortment of which that had been set aside had created a small pool of dirty rain water around the case—And set off to return home. I shuffled along a soaked stone path with the trickling rain tapping on and dripping from my umbrella, gradually making my way back home in the damp atmosphere, and I couldn't tear the memories of the night from my mind. Even though the night was done, the motions and the words kept rolling on through my mind, the two of us still dancing gracefully through my recollection.

Rainy days were something common as March became April, and then springtime truly began. Plants and greenery slowly began to bloom again. It seemed that life had begun once more and it was well on its way through the new year. Every day that passed was nearly identical, leaving hardly any room for notable memory, with the exception of the ones that lay behind me. Temperatures rose steadily as April bled into May and before I could realize it, summer had come around again.

June was pleasantly warm, but July was baking. With the sun rising earlier on in the morning, I frequently found myself taking the walk to work under a bright sun and a gentle heat that never failed to spike once lunchtime came around. Even Happy Home's air conditioning couldn't fight the heat well enough, leaving clouds of warmth every room I brought myself to. But even with how much further the summertime crept in, I often pulled out the memories I had tucked away in the back of my mind of that one rainy March evening I had spent with Lottie. Even now, every day passed in time's consistent and patient rhythm, a rhythm that I had no choice but to rely on amongst the rhythm that had sent our delicate steps across the floor.

We did not intervene in the problems that were tearing down the company. It was indeed the topic for more constructive and even emergency meetings than I could keep track of, but without a firm grasp on what we were doing wrong or how we had caused this, proper intervention was impossible. Worry for the future had etched deep enough into our daily lives that it became usual. At this point, we were all simply doing what we could to fix things that we knew and do our best to forget about what we didn't.

Life went on. The humid summer days clung to the sensation of expecting distaste. But I kept on going, as I had no more choice than anyone else, and Lottie and I never stopped spinning in my mind.

. . .

"Here's what I'm thinking," Lyle said, pushing himself up from the judgment table to prepare to leave the room, and I followed suit. Lottie spared us a glance for just a moment before she bowed her head again in order to continue writing, still jotting down notes from the Happy Homeroom session we had just finished. "We've been hoping to start providing multiple sessions per afternoon for a while now. We haven't decided on an official date when that's going to start happening, but what I had originally assumed was that it would happen late this year or early next year."

Lottie must have finished preparing her notes, since she was already slipping the sheet of paper into a pale folder by the break in Lyle's explanation. I perched my paws on the back of my chair in a casual stance as Lyle glanced between Lottie and me to speak again.

"I'm going to express the obvious and say that we're not ready for something like that just yet," Lyle went on. Lottie closed her folder and rose to her feet, holding the folder close to her in her arms as she watched her uncle to wait politely for her dismissal. "But maybe we can speed up the process a little bit. We can turn our focus towards the planning of this advancement rather than dwelling on everything else for a while. It'll give us something new to think about, at least."

"I think that would be a great idea," Lottie replied. "Focusing on one thing for too long will definitely tire us out, like it has been."

"Right." Lyle gave a slow nod, tucking his paws into his pockets. "I don't know what kind of a reaction that's going to provoke, though. I'm going to be honest with you two. I don't know whether it's going to have more of a positive or negative impact to try this out. I just think it's worth a shot, in case it does work in our favor."

Lyle paused in his statement, pushing back the sleeve of his suit jacket to read his watch for a few seconds, and he lowered his arm to turn his attention to Lottie, who was still courteously waiting.

"Well, I know you've got to get those session notes into the system, Lottie," Lyle said. "You should go ahead and get that done."

My focus lingered on Lottie as she went off towards the door to head back to her office, carrying her folder in her arms as her high heels clicked across the room. I didn't move from the table—I had not been formally dismissed yet and if Lyle would need anything in the closure process, I would have been there to assist him. Lyle's reach towards Lottie's end of the table snatched away my focus as the door swung shut again and he picked up the remote that she had left beside her tablet, pointing it towards the results screen on the right wall and shutting it down. I caught a glimpse of the results from the previous participant before the screen went dark.

Success

Excess of 10 points

"I know that Lottie has really been looking forward to the change for Happy Homeroom," Lyle remarked, setting aside the remote where he had taken it from. "She says it'll feel more like how she had first envisioned the project than what we have right now. Even if it doesn't do much for us in terms of rescuing our reputation, it would mean a lot to her to finally have that in her life."

Lyle had shifted in his stance to face me as he finished speaking, but the sound of a tumbling piece of crumpled paper from his accidental kick cut off his next words. He dropped his gaze to search the floor at his feet, trying to figure out what had just happened, before he bent down to collect a wadded sheet of paper that had been left underneath the table.

"I must have dropped this at some point," Lyle mumbled as if to himself, carefully undoing the crumple in the paper and smoothed it out to read its contents, his eyes squinting observantly from behind his glasses.

"What is it?" I asked him.

Lyle continued to study the sheet of paper in front of him for a moment and crushed it in his paws again. "It's the letter that made Lottie sick that one time," he explained, absentmindedly squeezing the crumpled piece of paper in his paw to crinkle it further. "You know, back in December. It's probably best that we don't relive those memories right now."

Lyle outstretched his paw, offering me the wadded up sheet of paper. Uncertain as to why he would have been giving it to me, I took it from his paw and secured it between my own.

"If you could bring it upstairs and leave it on my desk, that would be great," Lyle told me, seeming to note my confusion. "I won't be in here by the time you're done, so you don't have to come back. You can either get some work done here or leave for the day."

Since Lottie had already started off back towards her office, the hallway was deserted when I exited through the doorway from Happy Homeroom. My footsteps were muffled with every step over thick and flat gray carpet, my path well lit by the strips of lights above. I set off on my way to leave the building segment, fiddling with the crumpled letter in my paw like it was some kind of stress ball.

What letter even was this? Lyle clearly hadn't cared much for it, considering the way he opened it and then squished it again right after. I thrust my way through a set of double doors into the pearly hallways of the main building segment, emerging to continue on to the stairwell. I struggled to pick out a moment in my recent memory of anyone receiving or mentioning that they had received a letter, so I found this unusual. But then again, if it had been delivered in December while Lottie was inexplicably sick, as Lyle had told me, then it wasn't recent at all.

Wait a minute. The letter that made her sick? My feet came to a stop halfway down the white hallway, mind reeling with Lyle's words before I had left the room accompanied by the recollections of Lottie's illness last year resurfacing in memory. I couldn't distinguish particular moments from the series of events, as it had been several months ago, but the idea that I had no clue of what had made her so sick for so long had troubled me greatly. I'd spent each and every day devoted to discovering that fateful hint of what had gone wrong. I tossed a glance over my shoulder towards the direction from which I had come, hesitating as if I were waiting for Lyle to burst into the hallway and spill all the news, but was reminded of how casually he had introduced the letter to me earlier and accepted that it must have been something I had known already. I turned back and kept on walking.

My paws had begun to fumble with the letter as I stole my way through the hallway, carefully opening it the way Lyle had done. It wasn't a difficult task to pry open the sheet of paper, glancing down once it was extended again in hopes for an aimless scan of the writing, but I earned more than I had tried for. My feet surrendering to another stop. The feeling draining from every inch of me like it was pouring out onto the floor. Quite abruptly losing my breath like it was blown away by the wind with the heart-jolting dread that dipped into one's chest when it came to their attention that something was seriously, seriously wrong.

Lottie,

Thank you so much for your kind words! I'm so glad that you reached out and I hope the technological issues end soon and things go back to normal. I'd be glad to offer my support where I can. I miss you just as much!

I wish this could be where I explain to you some magical and incredible adventure that I'm venturing through so it would be like you were coming along with me, but I have to admit that nothing much has happened recently. I did have a surprise birthday party thrown for me today by my neighbors, which was so thoughtful and so much fun! Other than that, there aren't really many known upcoming events except for Toy Day in five days, for which I have already decorated the inside of my house from top to bottom. I wish you could see it! Both the huge events have made me feel so happy recently and I hope the feeling never ends.

Regrettably, I haven't been in touch with Digby lately as I probably should be, but I've actually made a new friend over here. His name is Redd. He runs a transportable cart that carries small yet valuable items of artistic value. We've known each other for just about half a year but I feel that we've gotten very close over that period of time to become good friends. He's really patient and friendly with me and I am so, so grateful for all of his support during this time that I'm away. Everything is really coming together nicely and I think I'm really living my best life here.

I promise I will write as often as I can until the phone can work properly again and we get the chance to call each other. Until then, thank you so much for your letter and I hope to be in contact again soon!

Isabelle